GARETH SOUTHGATE last night defiantly ruled out walking away from Middlesbrough’s relegation scrap. The Teessiders are in the Premier League drop zone after defeat at Manchester City extended their winless run to 13 games.

But asked if he has considered walking away, Southgate replied: “No chance.

“I’m here to try to help us get through this, and all I’m focusing on is getting us out of the position we’re in, everything else is outside our control.

“Nobody is ducking the challenge. When teams are having a bad run, very often you find the treatment rooms full, people are hiding. That isn’t the case here.

“The fortunate thing for us is that the league is so tight, we probably need five wins to stay in the division but we’ve got to get the first one before we start thinking about needing two, three, four. We play Wigan at home in our next league game, that’s crucial for us.”

Turning his attention to yesterday’s game, when Afonso Alves was denied by Shay Given FOUR times, Southgate refused to blame the Brazilian or his team-mates.

“We’re not where we are because of performances like that,” he said. “I can’t be harsh on them, their commitment was totally right to the last minute and they’re not getting what they deserve.

“There’ve been quite a few away games when we’ve had so many chances to win but we’re not taking them. A lot of them are falling to Afonso (Alves) but at least he’s getting into those areas and what pleased me today is that we created chances.

“It’s easy to be critical of our finishing but there were some brilliant saves. It’s frustrating for us because I thought we did the majority of things right, we were difficult to play against, solid, and the one time we switched off we were punished.”